One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

Eight Month Checkin

Oct 20 2017
Eight Month Checkin

Today marks the eight month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 774.88 miles on the treadmill while taking 1,554,800, watching 454 episodes and 90 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 49.28 pounds in weight. That's only 1 1/2 lbs in the last month, which on the one hand is pretty frustrating but on the other hand just shows me that I am nearing the end of my practical weight loss. That doesn't mean I am done making progress in feeling healthier, or that my body is done changing form, but all the "easy" weight loss is far behind me at this point. Whatever my weight, my waist size keeps shrinking. I can now comfortably fit into pants with a 40" waist, which seemed like an unachievable goal only a few months ago. For gosh sake, I had a 38" waist in high school. The last two weeks I have been floating around the 50 lb mark for total weight lost, some days slightly more and some days slightly less. I expect that as I get deeper into rehearsal for the show I am doing this winter, I will drop down a bit more. Life is good.

Oh, and I also finished The Talons of Weng-Chiang today, so let's talk about that.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Parts 5 & 6

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

In the fifth episode of the story, it turns out that Weng-Chiang's underlings have very incompetently (and conveniently for plotting purposes) left behind a carpet bag containing several items needed to open and operate the recently stolen Time Cabinet. The bag is discovered by Jago, who promptly brings it to Litefoot, and a classic detective duo is born. True, they are both staggeringly incompetent for differing reasons, but they work together nicely. Meanwhile the Doctor and Leela successfully trace Weng-Chiang back to a combination laundry service and opium den, but he has already scampered off to his new Secret Lair. They do find Chang surprisingly still alive, having had one leg gnawed off by a Rodent of Unusual Size, and having subsequently crawled to the opium den to get stoned out of his mind and appear in a pointless scene where he dies at the end anyway without revealing any new information.

Jago and Litefoot promptly get themselves kidnapped by Weng-Chiang and taken back to the Secret Lair where they are held captive along with a pair of young ladies who are going to be drained of life energy. The Doctor employs the somewhat questionable strategy of "stand around and wait for the bad guy to show up and kidnap us", which not surprisingly results in Weng-Chiang showing up and kidnapping them, but not before Leela pulls off his mask and finally reveals his face.


Yeah, I'd wear a mask too.

All of which brings us to the big showdown in the Secret Lair of the Giant Golden Dragon With Laser Cannon Eyes. Said laser canon is operated by Chang's ventriloquist dummy, which turns out to actually be a semi-sentient robot from the future powered by a fragment of a pig's brain. Because, of course. Weng-Chiang turns out to actually be a 51st century war criminal named Magnus Greel, a.k.a. "The Butcher of Brisbane". Also also known as "a moron who doesn't know how to properly operate a time cabinet", and gets himself turned to dust in the end while his robot homunculus has it's fuse ripped out by the Doctor. A happy ending!

I joke, but it really is an excellent story with great production values (giant rats aside). Wrapping this one up marks the end of an era, with the exit of Philip Hinchcliffe as producer. Robert Holmes sticks around as script editor for a few more stories yet (most strongly felt in the very next one), but by the middle of the next season (and the midpoint of the Fourth Doctor era) he is gone and the tone of the stories begins to shift away from horror and back to pure science fiction. There is good and bad in that change, but I am a little bit sad that I have now reached the end of what I would consider to be Peak Who. From here on out the budgets and production value begins to shrink and, although there are some truly classic stories coming up, the quality and consistency never again reaches the same heights.

On the other hand, this weekend I get to look forward to a story about a haunted light house, and then on Monday I finally get to meet the tin dog. So it's all good.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela
Episode(s): The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Parts 5 & 6
Steps Walked: 7,360 today, 1,554,800 total
Distance Walked: 3.94 miles today, 774.88 miles total
Weight: 258.02 lbs (five day moving average), net change -49.28 lbs


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